Cyclops
by Pickled Lemons
Summary: Standing beside Draco's coffin, she begins to remember their life together. They hadn't got that happily ever after anyhow. 'Not your fault,Granger. You are a mudblood, after all.' Rated R for a reason.


Hermione lowered her eyelids, and stared at the dark, polished coffin in front of her. The lid was engraved with intricate, beautiful carvings, and it was lined with soft, crimson silk. It rested on the dark, wet earth, and all around it fell the rain, light and cold.

The coffin was shaded by a black umbrella that had been dug into the earth. The rainwater slid off the sides, and fell in great, shimmering curtains to the ground. She held her own umbrella a little higher, and stared at his, pale, long face, distorted by the water and her own salty tears.

He was lying so still, so calm in the coffin. It hurt her that he should seem so happy and content, when he had never been happy with her. Even now, clouded in her own grief and torment she could hear his sneering voice.

'_Why do you _do_ these things, anyway? What is wrong with you?'_

She squeezed her eyes shut, and a few more tears slid down her cheeks. That horrible, jeering voice- it was sometimes slow and teasing, nothing more than an affected drawl, and sometimes so cold and sharp, like shards of ice that pierced her skin. And for some reason she had loved it, craved it even, purposely spilling water and blood, so that even if he didn't talk to her he _shouted_ at her…

It had been horrible bitter, she remembered. Yearning for so long to hear that voice, and after days of ignoring, hearing it…

'_Good lord, Mudblood, you're clumsy. Get a cloth and wipe up all this water. Why the hell did you spill it anyway-_

_I'm sorry Draco, you know I-_

_Get the mop will you? That's enough. Be quiet, I'm doing the crossword._

The crossword.

How she hated that grid of letters, that he so loved to fill in every morning. It was the first thing he did, when the tawny owl dropped a copy of the Prophet on the kitchen sill of their flat. He would carefully open the paper, smoothen the leaves, and then pick up a pencil from the kitchen table and pursue that fucking crossword, with a slight frown between his forehead.

_Five letters, Mudblood, ending with a P. Think- maybe you can solve it._

_I – I don't know, Draco-_

_God, woman, it's strap. S-T-R-A-P-_

_I should have guessed that, it's so obvious._

_Not your fault, Granger. You are a Mudblood after all._

She stifled back a sob as she remembered. All the normal, everyday routine things that other couples shared were carried out in the most twisted way possible. In bed, he was violent. She would always come out of it with scars and welts and numerous red marks all over her body. Her friends had long since given up on her, they knew she loved him, and they would not come near her anymore…

The crowd of people on the other side of the coffin was staring at her. She didn't feel embarrassed, like she would have, earlier. Instead, she felt a dull, empty, hollow, where all the shame had been earlier. She didn't have same anymore- he had sucked it all out of her.

_You're a shameless whore aren't you._

_Yes, Draco,_

_Say it._

_I'm a shameless whore._

She always agreed with him, always- even if doubts tortured her mind. It was compromise, she told herself. She was comprising because she loved him

Compromising her life…

_Blaise wants to see you in a compromising position, Mudblood._

_But Draco-_

_Come on, love, it's good to share._

_Do you love me, then?_

_Love you? I'd sell you for two pence if I had to._

_Am I worth two pence then?_

_Only if I had to, Mudblood…_

The degradation of it all had been amazing. So were his tears. He had cried only once in front of her, and he hadn't meant her to see it. She had hidden behind the velvet drape in the parlor, and watched the glossy black owl deliver the letter informing him of his mother's death, and then he had cried. Large, translucent tears had slid down his cheeks, and the noises had hurt her to much- she sobbed herself, and leaving her hiding place, she had gone up to him and wrapped her arms around him, and comforted him.

He hadn't known she had been there. He hadn't liked it.

Later, when he had finished crying, he had heated the poker on the old-fashioned fire she had lit, and pressed it against her eye. She didn't even have the strength to scream- she sat on the settee and patiently waited for him to finish burning her eye out.

When he was done, he had tossed the poker aside, and casually poured himself a whiskey and soda.

_The next time you see that, the next one goes._

_I'm sorry Draco._

_Put something on it, Mudblood. It's disgusting to see._

So she had wrapped a bandage around it until the raw, red wound had healed, and the burnt flesh and sinew had stopped smelling. Then she had dabbed it with ointment for months until the lid was pulled down and drawn up at the same time, showing its blood-red interior, and her eyeball was just a glossy white dome.

She looked like a monster, but she felt like a saint, because she had comforted him when he was crying- because he had held her tightly and she had wiped away his tears and he hadn't minded for a moment, because at that moment, he had forgotten that her blood was dirtier than gutter slime.

She kept staring at the coffin. They had dressed him in his best suit. He wore it well, the material draped over his broad shoulders, the velvet lapel pressed against his sinewy chest. The white silk shirt covered the bloody wound on his chest.

They hadn't washed off the blood, from when she had pierced him with the same poker he had burnt her eye out with.

It had been too much, after all. The pain, the sadness- she hadn't fully lost herself either. Except the moment she realized she wasn't fully lost in his power she was lost to another she couldn't even begin to fathom. Then, she had picked up the clean poker, and driven it through his back while he drank his whiskey and soda. It had gone through, she heard a rib splinter, maybe it even went through his heart- it came out from the other side, anyhow. Later on, they said that she had gone mad.

She felt it had gone through his heart, because at one moment in the middle of it her own heart had broken into a million pieces, and she had retreated further into her madness.

He was happy now. Content. She could see it on his face. He hadn't been with her, but he was now, and unknowingly, she had helped him. She hated him, she wanted him to hurt. Slowly, she bent down and scooped up a bit of wet mud in her palm.

The silver haired man standing beside her let out an exclamation as she threw it at the coffin.

'Hermione!' he chided. 'That's a terrible thing to do, my dear. You mustn't.'

He looked apologetically at the crowd.

'I'm so sorry, all of you. I thought if I kept her away from you at the other side of the coffin it would be all right but- well- I suppose we should go. Come, my dear.'

She turned and followed him. Didn't she always obey? Of course she did. And he was dead now- he couldn't hurt.

The extended Malfoy family, and many of his friends watched silently as the warden led away the funny, one eyed girl, back to the asylum where she belonged.


End file.
